Unasur

Argentine Defense Minister Agustín Rossi met his Brazilian counterpart, Celso Amorim and agreed to incorporate all South American countries in their bilateral treaty on cyber-defense. The decision was made after several reports indicated the United States engaged in espionage activities against the countries in the region.

Paraguayan president Horacio Cartes will be visiting Uruguay next 25 October to meet with his peer Jose Mujica and a month later will be flying to the Vatican to visit Pope Francis, November 25, announced Foreign minister Eladio Loizaga.

Bolivian president Evo Morales claimed that the Pacific Alliance (Colombia, Chile, Peru and Mexico) is part of a major conspiration plotted “from the north” and directed to divide the Union of South American Nations, Unasur.

Venezuela and Paraguay need to re-establish full relations and overcome “all the obstacles that need to be overcome”, said Foreign minister Elías Jaua currently in Asunción, a special guest of his counterpart Eladio Loizaga.

Venezuela Foreign minister Elias Jaua is expected Wednesday in Asuncion, a guest of the Paraguayan government to talk about bilateral relations, Mercosur and to advance in negotiations of common interest, according to sources from the administration of President Horacio Cartes.

South American foreign ministers are scheduled to meet next Friday in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to decide the name of the next Unasur secretary general, according to an official release from the main office in Quito.

Argentina’s Hector Timerman and Brazil’s new Foreign minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado discussed a long agenda of common interest issues during a work meeting held in Buenos Aires, which included Mercosur, trade discussions with Europe, Unasur, Haiti and US cyber-spying in the region among other issues.

Despite the strong statement against US intervention in Syria and the harmonious meeting of Paraguay and Venezuela presidents, the recent Unasur (Union of South American Nations) summit in Suriname was unable to agree on the group’s next Secretary General, a post which is currently held by Venezuela’s Ali Rodriguez.

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro apologized to his peer Paraguayan peer Horacio Cartes for any ‘pain’ caused to Paraguay and promised a ‘sacrifice’ to repair the ‘error’, according to sources from both presidents and from Brazilian leader Dilma Rousseff who sponsored the meeting between the two heads of state in the framework of the recent Unasur VII summit in Suriname.

Suriname opposition legislators have called on President Desi Bouterse to resign as well as to clarify the circumstances surrounding the arrest of his son by United States law enforcement authorities in Panama earlier this week.